I'm doing the goldenglow estate quest w/my buddy Kharjo the Khajiit. Everything's going fine. I entered the estate, killed the owner (didn't want to), and robbed the safe in the basemant. After that I went to the beehives, put down a few wards to prep for the mercenaries who would show up, and burned the hives. The mercs showed up on schedule but after a few minutes Kharjo turned and attacked me, so I had to fight the mercs and avoid killing him.

I teleported back to Riften in the hopes that Kharjo would reappear next to me and be in a better mood. He didn't show up. Then, oddly enough, Mora Snow-Shod suddenly appeared and attacked me and then an Imperial Guard attacked me. I killed them both but didn't get why they attacked me in the first place. Was it because I killed the Goldenglow Estate owner?

At first I considered that I might have hit Kharjo during our fight w/the mercs at the hives and this why he turned on me, but I've hit him many times before, to which he didn't do anything but say "watch it."

Then I thought that maybe Kharjo's attack was activated as part of a side quest.

I haven't read any other reports like this on the net.

Anyone have a similar thing happen to them?

NPCs sometimes become hostile for no apparent reason due to bugs in the game, but usually it has to do with having a bounty in the hold you are being attacked in and/or someone witnessed you commit a crime. I don't think killing Aringoth (the owner of Honeybrew Estate) is supposed to be considered a crime, but it's still possible the game may have recorded it as being a crime, I really don't know for sure. The best solution would be to check to see if you have a bounty in the Rift and pay it off if necessary or else reload a save prior the problem happening. Sometimes bringing followers on special quests in certain locations can have odd side effects as well.

Thank you. I didn't want this quest to affect the game adversely for me in the future. After playing Oblivion, I understood that certain quest lines can interfere w/other ones and cause problems later on, like not being able to finish other quests. As long as this doesn't screw the game up for me, I might just let it go. .